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Data centres, often criticised for their intensive need for energy, could become a critical source of heating for cities if properly located, according to the boss of one of Europe’s leading energy transition companies.
Kim Fausing, chief executive of Danfoss, a privately owned Danish company that provides heat pumps and data centre cooling systems, said Frankfurt could have all its heating needs met by excess heat generated by data centres by the end of this decade.
“There’s a lot of controversy, really on the pure amount of power [that] data centres are going to need,” the Danfoss boss told the Financial Times. “But [they] could help us solve heating issues in certain cities if they are placed appropriately.”
Fausing was speaking ahead of an energy summit in that was opened by the king of Denmark on Monday. It features representatives of leading Nordic companies and global peers such as Google, EDF and Siemens.
Business leaders wanted to show that decarbonisation could be a source of growth for Europe, in line with the findings of a report by former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi that is being debated by the European Commission, Fausing said.
Demand for data centres has been given a fresh boost by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, but their use of large amounts of electricity has proved controversial.
The market for data centres is expected to increase from $220bn at the end of 2022 to $418bn by the end of this decade, according to market research company Industry ARC.
Frankfurt is home to more than 60 data centres, as well as one of the world’s largest internet exchanges. Experts have calculated that proximity to houses and offices meant that excess heating from the city’s data centres could provide them all with green heating by 2030.
That is in contrast to the Nordic region, where data centres tend to be located in more remote areas that are close to power sources or cold water.
European industrialists are growing increasingly worried about the pace of the region’s green transition after sales of electric cars and heat pumps slowed and investors cancelled several hydrogen and green fuel projects.
The near collapse of Swedish battery maker Northvolt has further highlighted the fragility of Europe’s efforts to develop homegrown green industries in the face of fierce competition from China.
“There’s a risk that Europe is left waiting on the platform” because of a lack of clear and long-term regulation that could help companies accelerate investment in green technologies, Fausing said.
The region needed to speed up and simplify its subsidies for the green transition to enable companies to compete with counterparts in China and the US, who are benefiting from state support.
“European schemes are more clunky . . . Europe is quite good at analysing and talking, but much less good at actually acting,” he said.
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